


And The Time's, Such Clumsy Time

by threemeows



Series: Close My Eyes and Believe [1]
Category: To All the Boys I've Loved Before Series - Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-14 16:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18056222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threemeows/pseuds/threemeows
Summary: And the time's, such clumsy timeDeciding if it's timeLara Jean reads the notes before the ski trip.





	And The Time's, Such Clumsy Time

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Jimmy Eat World’s For Me This Is Heaven.

Lara Jean checks the time on her phone again, jiggles her leg even harder. _Shit. Shit. Shit_. Maybe Dad won’t notice how late she is past her curfew. Maybe - maybe he got called to the hospital.  
  
“Relax,” Peter says, after he stops at the light and she lets out an impatient groan.  
  
“Mmm,” she mutters, around her fist.  
  
“ ... Sorry,” he adds, and he does sound sorry.  
  
“Not your fault,” she says. And it wasn’t. She shouldn’t have gone over to watch movies - especially after fighting about going on the ski trip earlier in the day. She should never have fallen asleep on top of him. If it hadn’t been for Owen being a jackass – texting them both with a picture he’d snapped of them while they were asleep – she’d probably still be there.  
  
And even in more trouble. In more ways than one.  
  
The light turns green. Peter practically peels off, tires squealing. Lara Jean lurches forward and despite herself, she laughs. He does too - reaches over and pats her shoulder, squeezes. She reaches up and grabs his hand, squeezes back. Doesn’t let go . . . feels his thumb run over her knuckles for an electrifying moment, and when she looks over at him, and he looks back, his hair flying from the wind whooshing through the open window, she can’t look away - because the smile on his face his so soft, his eyes sparkling in the dim light with such a gentle warmth towards her that she can’t believe what she’s seeing ...

So she puts both her hands back in her lap, fiddles with her phone, clears her throat.  
  
Peter slides the car into an open spot on the street. All the lights are off in the house. Dad’s car isn’t there.  
  
He got called to the hospital.  
  
Lara Jean whoops with relief, jumps out of the car. She’s about to peer into the window to call her thanks, until she realizes Peter’s gotten out too, is walking towards her side, like he’s going to walk her up to the house. Which he’s never done before. But it’s late - super late, actually - and maybe that’s why.  
  
“Um, you don’t have to -“ she starts to say, even as they stroll up to the porch.  
  
“Whatever, Covey,” he says, hands stuffed into his jean pockets.  
  
She shrugs, digs her keys out of her bag. Her hands are shaking for some reason, and it takes forever to unlock the front door. When she does, she pushes it open as quietly as possible - she doesn’t want to wake Kitty - and flips on only one of the hallway lights.  
  
“Thanks,” she whispers, turning to face him from inside the house.  
  
“Yeah. No prob,” he says.  
  
They stand there for a half-beat. “Well, good night,” she says, moving to close the door - except he’s leaned forward slightly.  
  
He’s holding a note up with two fingers.  
  
“Gen’s not here,” she says, brow creased.  
  
His brow creases, too. “Uh, duh.”  
  
“... So why are you ...?” She can feel her frown deepen.  
  
Peter sucks his lips in, so that they’re a straight line - nods, once, like he’s begun to realize something. “Um, because it’s for you,” he says, and it could be her imagination, but he sounds hesitant. Then he seems to come to a decision and says, more assured now, “Just. You know. For you.”  
  
“Okay,” she says - reaches out. When she takes it, he doesn’t let go - just shifts his grip so that his fingers cover hers, brief and light. He squeezes, and she looks up at him, eyes wide, mouth parted in surprise, cheeks and neck flushing with a sudden heat.  
  
“‘Night,” he says, quiet, and turns to leave.  
  
She doesn’t close the door - watches him, instead, loping down the lawn towards his Jeep. She only closes the door when he drives away, still puzzling.  
  
Something tells her she shouldn’t read this note.  
  
Something tells her maybe she should.  
  
She creeps up the stairs, washes up in the bathroom. Cracks the door open to make sure Kitty’s sleeping and okay. Heads to her room, changes into her comfiest flannel pajamas. Lies on her stomach on her bed, and unfolds the note on top of her pillow.  
  
Reads it.  
  
Her heart seems to soar into her throat, the sound of it sputtering in her ears, loud, relentless. She reads the note, again and again, burns it into the skin of her fingertips, into her memory.  
  
_Pretty. He thinks I’m pretty._  
  
*  
  
She wakes up late, so late it’s already afternoon, because she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t sleep, so she dug around her room and backpack, fishing out all the notes he’d written her before - the ones she’d read, and the ones she’d tossed aside, thinking they were nothing. She’d got them all and laid them down one by one on her desk, like a little trail, a path towards a previously unknown story. And she reads each stepping stone, again and again.  
  
(So, no. She didn’t really sleep at all.)  
  
He doesn’t text her. She doesn’t call.  
  
She eats a burnt slice of toast for breakfast and can’t bring herself to get off the couch and stop watching Nat Geo while Dad attempts to make Korean food for dinner. She’s just glad they’re officially on winter break and she can avoid Peter and the ski trip and this horrible muddle of emotions until after the New Year.

So maybe she should stop playing with the settings on her phone, stop putting that photo Owen sent her as her lock screen, then chickening out and putting a photo of her and her sisters doing exaggerated duck pouts instead, only to put it back up again later … and then start the process all over again. She tells herself it’s for the story, just in case Gen or Josh will see. It’s part of the cover.  
  
And then there’s a knock at the door and it’s Chris, demanding to know why PK keeps blowing up her phone about the ski trip and pestering Dad about why he became a vagina doctor. Needling Lara Jean about how happy she’s become, even though, right now, happy is not the word Lara Jean would use to describe herself. And then there’s Dad, who, after he flees from Chris’ mortifying interrogation, returns and says Chris is right, she should go on the ski trip, and writes a check and signs the permission slip right then and there.  
  
*  
  
Dad drops her off that Friday, and she has to suffer an excruciating two minute conversation about her sex life. Which is _wow_ , not something she needs to hear right now, thank you Dad.  
  
Lara Jean grabs her bag, shoves it underneath the bus. Then she gulps, and clambers up the steps.  
  
Peter’s sitting by a window seat, mid-way down the bus. He puts two fingers in a peace sign to his forehead in greeting. Lara Jean swallows and shuffles forward, her hands in her pockets.  
  
“Hey,” he says, moving his bag for her to sit down.  
  
“Hey,” she mumbles, and sits down next to him, putting her own backpack on the floor. She purses her lips, confused, considering. He’s sitting there like everything’s normal. And nothing’s normal now, is it?  
  
But he’s sitting there, chill, like she never fell asleep on him during movie night - like his stupid brother never took a picture of them - like he never wrote her that note. Those notes. Because it’s been more than that one note, hasn’t it? It’s been all those notes. The one after her presentation. The one after dinner with his mom. _That_ one.  
  
_The_ one.  
  
“What’s up?” he asks, frowning. “How come you haven’t texted or called?”  
  
“I’ve texted,” she says, her own frown deepening.  
  
“To say you were coming. But that was it. What gives?”  
  
Lara Jean’s hand clenches over the contents of her pocket. He’s sitting there like nothing’s wrong, like that note meant nothing. Her heart sinks, so low she can feel the slow bitter ooze of it down to her stomach. It probably _was_ nothing, to him.  
  
She just - doesn’t understand . . . How he could write a note like that - give it to her after a night like that - and act ... like ... like _this_.

“Hey Peter,” someone coos from behind her. Lara Jean closes her eyes, steeling herself before looking over her shoulder at Genevieve. “What’s up?”

“Hey Gen,” she says, ignoring the fact Gen hadn’t said hi to her. Lara Jean looks back at Peter, who looks briefly like a deer caught in the headlights before he says, nicely enough, “Hey.”

Gen stands there, expectant, and Lara Jean feels her insides contract. She just waits for the inevitable.

But then people from the front of the bus press forward, trying to find seats, and someone yells, insistent, “Come _on_ ,” and someone else asks, “What’s the hold up?” and Gen, surprised, looks at Peter, then back at Lara Jean, then back at Peter, before she clicks her tongue and shuffles towards the back, past them.

Lara Jean turns to Peter, bewildered. He’s rubbing the back of his neck, as if embarrassed. When he catches her gaze, she exclaims, “What are you doing?”

“Huh?” He blinks at her.

“Why didn’t you tell her to sit down?”

“Sit down where?”

“Here.”

He looks really confused. “Uh, because _you’re_ sitting there.”

Huh? What is he _on_? He writes her these notes and then acts like nothing happened and then doesn’t tell her to check out when Gen finally shows? Totally and utterly fed up, Lara Jean checks out the window - the driver is almost done loading everybody’s luggage underneath. “Look, I think - um - this was a really bad idea. I’m just gonna go home.”  
  
Peter’s eyes widen. “What? Why?”  
  
_Oh my god._ Can he really be this stupid? “Look, I know you still want to be with Gen,” she says, lowly, so that no one else can hear. “So I don’t get why you have to get me to sit with you. Or write me these - these things -“ She digs the notes out of her pocket, shoves them into his chest. A few flutter onto his lap before he can grab them, stunned. “ - And expect me to - I dunno ... It’s _mean_ , Peter. Believe me, I know she can be awful, but this? It’s mean to her, it’s mean to … to _me_ , and I really don’t want to be the personal witness to you and her . . . you know.” Damn it. She hadn’t expected her voice to hitch like that.

“You actually read them?!” Peter exclaims - heads turn to look, and Lara Jean, face red, shushes him. “I thought you didn’t read them!”  
  
“Of _course_ I read them! You shoved that last one at me and I read all of them that night!”  
  
Peter looks at her, frustrated, and she glares back. “Then why didn’t you say anything after the last one?“ he demands.

“Why didn’t _you_?!”  
  
“Because I was waiting for _you_ to say something! Oh my god you are so _dense_ , Covey!” He slaps his forehead, wipes his hand through his hair.

“ _I’m_ dense – ?!” she exclaims, her voice hissing with the effort to keep it low.

“Wait wait wait. Just wait.” Then he takes a deep breath and says slowly, like he’s trying to get her to understand something, “I thought you didn’t read them. So that’s why I gave you the last one when we were alone. To make sure you’d read it. But then - you didn’t say anything - and you’ve been talking to Sanderson - so I thought …”

“ _Josh_? I only talked to him that one time – and besides, what does Josh have anything - ”

Peter just gives her an exasperated look. “Covey.” He sighs, then says, “What I’m trying to say is that I thought – Okay. Whatever. I’ll just have to go big, or go home.”  
  
“Go big?” she replies, weakly. Her blood thrums through her, warm, tingly.  
  
Peter leans down, unzips his backpack. Inside is a little thermal drink cooler, surrounded by snacks - chips, chocolate, the usual American fare. But also stuff that you can only get from the Korean grocery store across town - Pocky sticks, wasabi peas, lychee coconut jelly packs.

Oh.

“How’d you - when -?”  
  
Peter unzips the cooler, flips the lid. Yakult. Of course. “Got Kitty to take me,” he says, simply.  
  
The bus doors close - there’s a cheer as the bus lurches forward. Lara Jean can only stare at the backpack, full of her favorite snacks, and the crumpled notes still sitting in Peter’s lap.  
  
“Do you get it now?” he asks, head tilted close and eyebrows raised.  
  
Lara Jean looks up at him, studies his face - and that’s when she sees it. It’s not the first time that she’s seen this look. She saw it after dinner with his mom, when they were talking and cleaning up. She saw it when he dropped her off after she fell asleep on him. But it is the first time she realizes what it truly is. That this guy may act like everything is cool, everything is fine - but he’s just like her. Nervous. Maybe even scared.  
  
And underneath all that, there’s hope, too.  
  
She smiles, tentative, at him - the line of worry between his brows disappears, and his face relaxes into a wide, happy grin. He reaches for her face, and by instinct, she grabs his outstretched wrist - looks at him, nervous, anticipating. He bites his lip, looks at hers, and her heart just sputters. But before they can do anything, a paper ball bounces off of Peter’s head. They turn, and see Greg and Darrell a few seats away, laughing.  
  
_There’s too many people,_ she realizes, disappointed.  
  
Peter scowls, and snaps, “Assholes!”  
  
“Language, Mr. Kavinsky!” one of the chaperones says from the front.  
  
Peter rolls his eyes and sinks back into his seat, gives her an apologetic half smile, his hand still cupping the line of her jaw. Lara Jean snickers – they both lean against their respective seats’ headrests, faces inches apart. She smiles softly back at him – strokes his wrist with a soft nudge of her finger. There really are too many people around, but suddenly she feels significantly less clumsy, less awkward. Bold, even. _Is this what it’s like?_ she wonders.

She nuzzles her face into his hand just so – presses her mouth, light, against his palm. “Later?” she whispers.

His eyes flick to her lips, and he brushes his thumb against them, before he meets her gaze dead on. She feels her heart skip and sing with heat. “Yeah,” he whispers back, hoarse.

Then he grins, and pulls her to him, although she puts a hand out on his chest and says, quickly, “Wait!”

“What?!”

She grabs the notes, still in his lap, and stuffs them into her bag.

“What are you doing?”  
  
“Saving them,” she says, primly. She ignores his laugh, and then settles against him – closes her eyes at the feel of his arm draped around her, his mouth in her hair, and the tingly anticipation of what one word feels like, butterflying through them.

-End-


End file.
